Dragomir Radev Coaches US Linguistics Team to Multiple Wins

Dragomir Radev, Associate Professor in EECS, SI, and in the Department of Linguistics in LS&A, has for the fourth year led US high school students in successful competition at the 8th International Linguistics Olympiad in Stockholm, Sweden. This year, US team members claimed one gold, three silver, and two bronze medals in individual competition at the Olympiad, plus two honorable mentions, the most medals ever. In addition, the US Blue team ranked first in overall composite team score. 26 teams of high school linguists from 18 countries competed in the Olympiad.

US team members were selected from more than 1,100 students who competed in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) last winter. Prof. Radev coached the team in conjunction with Prof. Lori Levin of Carnegie Mellon University and Patrick Littell of the University of British Columbia.

The Olympiad mimics the skills used by researchers and scholars in the field of computational linguistics, which is increasingly important for the United States and other countries. Using computational linguistics, experts can develop automated language technologies such as search engines and translation software that cut down on the time and training needed to work with other languages.

NACLO, and the U.S. teams that competed this summer, are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pittsburgh Intelligent Systems Program, the North American chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL), as well as other generous contributors.